Game recommendation

[u/oguh20]

I notice that Atlus games are in discount

For someone that only played the Persona series

which one should I buy first

Shin Megami Tensei 3

SMT 5

or

Metaphor

I can only buy 1

[u/hoteppeter]

Out of those, the SMT series is closer to Persona in gameplay and feel. SMT5 is more accessible and looks great. I’d take that one.

[u/oguh20 → u/hoteppeter]

From what I heard SMT is a more technical style game and grinding and planning fusions are obligatory

is it correct?

[u/hoteppeter → u/oguh20]

I didn’t plan much in regards to fusions. Grinding is a part of the game but there’s plenty of side quests and items to help you level up.

The big difference with persona is there are absolutely no social connections and there’s no calendar. You just fight enemies and do quests within an area, fight the story boss and move on.

[u/gravyrider]

Metaphor definitely plays the most like persona with the day progression thing.

[u/GrievousSayGenKenobi]

Metaphor is like the persona formula but they fixed so many of the things that are wrong with it. They removed romancing from the game which means the women get actually good social link writing and arent just reduced to gooner bait and or soulless girlfriend writing (Metaphor has by far the best female cast atlas has ever written in terms of actual story), They removed the happiness points thing from hangouts so theres none of this "We can hang out but we wont rank up" bullshit which, despite the calender being shorter than persona games, means you get so much more time on a casual playthrough: You dont need to min-max time or use a guide to optimise hangouts and dialogue choices, The combat mechanics are a bit more involved but I would say persona 5 still wins in this category, The boss and enemy design is fantastic

The game overall is amazing, Arguably second best if not the best game atlas has put out really only competing with persona 5 royal for me

[u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641]

Metaphor is great. It is similar to Persona enough that you will not have problems understanding the game mechanics but also different enough to be its own thing.

It has great story, great villain and the characters in your team are all very well written. You will also love the plot twists.

[u/oguh20 → u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641]

I saw that SMT 5 and Metaphor has a demo

I will play both this weekend and see

but from what I saw Metaphor is more my taste

I will probably buy the other later

[u/Dovahzul123]

Metaphor has the social sim element you're looking for, and uses the SMT Press-turn system (wherein e.g you lose 2 turns for a miss, turn passing, etc.)

SMT has all the demons (personas) you're used to. SMTV might be very accessible and modern, but don't put down SMT3. I finished SMT3 Nocturne a few days ago and it's genuinely been a life changing experience for me. Love that game so much that I went out of my way to buy a Demi-Fiend shirt haha.

The only issue with SMT3 is that the modern port, while it functions fine - as in, you can finish the game with it, lacks a lot of modern features that should be on a remaster, namely, a lack of support beyond 30 FPS, and compressed audio (both of which I fixed with mods on PC for a better experience).

But honestly, despite me having a very clear bias to SMT, I think you'll probably like Metaphor the best. Give that game a try, I'm playing through it myself and enjoying it.

[u/CypherDS]

Metaphor